APUSH Ch. 8

America Secedes From the Empire

Second Continental Congress

• May 10, 1775—representatives from all 13 colonies meet

• Adopted measures to raise money and create an army and navy

• Drafted new appeals to the British and the king—rejected

• Select George Washington as the head of the colonial army

George Washington• Had never been higher rank than a colonel in the

militia• Never commanded more than 1200 men• Leadership and strength of character were his

gifts—a symbol and a rallying point• Even though the Continental Congress didn’t

know it, this was an extremely wise choice• Virginia was the largest and most populous

colony, and people were jealous and distrustful of the large New England army surrounding Boston

War Begins

• May 1775– Americans capture Ticonderoga and Crown Point in upper New York– Led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold– Gunpowder and artillery for siege of Boston

• Bunker Hill (actually Breed’s Hill)– British launch a frontal assault on the American

position and outnumbered them 2 to 1– Americans forced to abandon the hill when they

ran out of gunpowder

Olive Branch Petition

• July 1775• Professes American loyalty to the crown and

asking the king to end hostilities• Following Bunker Hill, there is no chance of

this in George III’s eyes, and in August 1775 he proclaims the colonies to be in rebellion

• Fighting against the crown is now treason• Hessians start to be hired in September 1775

Invasion of Canada

• Americans believed the French in Canada would rise up against the British

• Change for the Americans—offensive warfare• The attack on Quebec failed with General

Montgomery being killed and General Benedict Arnold being wounded

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Map 8.1: Revolution the North, 1775–1776

Thomas Paine Interjects Common Sense

• The burning of Norfolk Virginia in January 1776 and Falmouth in Maine in October 1775 began to shock some colonists into realizing they had to separate from the crown

• Thomas Paine writes Common Sense, and sold 120,000 copies within a few months– Called not just for independence, but for the creation of a

new political society, a republic– Power must flow from the people themselves

• Some felt that Paine went too far; that republicanism should end hereditary aristocracy, but not all social hierarchy. The masses have to be kept in check.

Independence

• Richard Henry Lee puts forth the motion that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states”

• Motion adopted on July 2, 1776• Committee to draft the statement on the

separation to be led by Thomas Jefferson• Declaration of Independence agreed to on

July 4, 1776

Declaration of Independence

• King is ignoring the natural rights of the colonists

• List of the misdeeds of George III• “The world’s greatest editorial”• The phrase “all men are created equal” would

be one that troubled the new nation for a very long time

Washington’s Battles

• Army routed at the Battle of Long Island• Washington escapes to New Jersey and

crosses the Delaware River• Wins two important battles at Trenton and

Princeton during December 1776-January 1777.

• Important battles because they forced the British into a defensive mode temporarily

Battle of Saratoga

• The British had a plan to capture the Hudson River Valley in 1777

• Burgoyne had been stopped at Lake Champlain by Arnold• General Howe had defeated Washington twice near

Philadelphia and had stopped there• Washington is stuck at Valley Forge• Burgoyne gets caught at Saratoga with no reinforcements

from Howe or St. Leger, and has to surrender his entire army• Turning point of the Revolution—foreign aid from France now

possible

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Map 8.2: New York–Pennsylvania Theater, 1777–1778

Diplomacy with France

• Model Treaty– No political connection– No military connection– Only a commercial connection

• France-American Alliance—February 1778– An entangling alliance that would give America

weapons, war material and money as well as an official recognition of American independence

American Revolution becomes a World War

• Spain and Holland enter the war against England in 1779

• Catherine the Great of Russia forms the “Armed Neutrality”—passive hostility of neutral European nations toward England

• Americans kept the war going through 1778, but the French really helped the Continental Army win

• From 1778-1783, guns, money, equipment, half of America’s regular armed forces, and nearly all naval strength came from France

British change tactics

• British withdraw from Philadelphia to concentrate strength in New York City

• British decide to come up from the South• Take Georgia in 1778-79, Charleston, SC in

1780 (5,000 men and 400 cannon)

Americans and the Frontier

• Most of the Iroquois confederacy supported the British—restrain American expansion into the West

• 1784- Treaty of Fort Stanwix– The Iroquois cede most of their land to the United

States

• George Rogers Clark– Takes British forts in Illinois—forces the British to cede

the region north of the Ohio River at the Paris peace conference

Yorktown

• General Cornwallis’ forces are trapped when Washington’s forces march from New York City to surround them at Yorktown along with the French leader, Comte de Rochambeau

• Cornwallis is trapped from escaping to sea by the French navy

• War continued for a year after Yorktown

Treaty of Paris (1783)

• British formally recognize the independence of the United States

• Granted boundaries from the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes to Spanish Florida

• Americans were not to persecute Loyalists any more

• Britain gave up so much at Paris because they wanted America to give up their alliance with France